


The Truth of the Heart

by fimbrethiel



Series: The Elrohir and Rumil Chronicles [4]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6252199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fimbrethiel/pseuds/fimbrethiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elrohir meets his match.</p>
<p>Original date of completion: August 28, 2007</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Elrohir/Rúmil  
> Prompt: 010 (50passages) – “You seem to know a lot. More than is good for you, I guess.”   
> Prompt: 012 (25fluffyfics) – “hurt”   
> Rating: PG, just in case  
> Warnings: none   
> Disclaimer: Don’t own the Elves, they are owned by Tolkien’s estate. Master Tolkien, I mean no harm. No profit has been made.  
> Beta: not this time
> 
> Author's Notes: This is a sort of prequel to my ficlet ‘No Better Thing,’ also written for the 25fluffyfics challenge. For context, it might be helpful to read that story first, but it certainly isn’t necessary. *grin*

*~*~*~*~*

 

The moon hung like a fat and bloated thing, dangling in the nighttime sky like the belly of some great, malignant spider, with legs of shadow spun from pale light filtering through the branches of the mellryn outside my window.

 

I lay in the narrow bed in the talan Elladan and I shared when in Lothlórien, thinking back moodily on the evening just passed, and the latest in a recent string of rare arguments between us.

 

Frustrated over my brooding, Elladan had long since abandoned his attempts to cajole me out of my melancholy, and with a few words best left unrepeated, he left me alone with my thoughts, while he crept out into the night for a clandestine reunion with one of his multitude of admirers.  There was no shortage of them, and Elladan had no compunction about flitting from one lover to another, from male to female with equanimity.  He made no promises, and each of his lovers appeared satisfied by the gifts he bestowed upon them, for no hint of jealousy or a spurned suitor ever reached my ears.

 

I, on the other hand, was not so generous with my favors.

 

This persistent reluctance to join my brother in his tomcatting was not attributed to a lack of interest in matters of the more amorous sort.  Oh no, certainly not!  In the years since reaching adulthood I had dallied with a number of succulent Imladris lovelies, and while these encounters were undoubtedly enjoyable, recently these transient affairs had left me feeling a sort of lukewarm indifference toward my partners.

 

Even here, under the golden boughs of mellryn, with a bevy of Silvan beauties of both genders at hand (and they are indeed plentiful in the Wood!), their primary goal seemingly the procurement of bragging rights for bedding one of the sons of the famed Elrond Half-elven, I rebuffed advances with a civility that skirted dangerously close to apathy.

 

No, my beloved twin could, and did, happily secure those honors.  I had no interest in playing that game any longer.

 

I finally fell into an uneasy doze, the matter of my own folly still weighty on my mind, while the moonlight slanted through my window and leached the colors into a pale monochrome.

 

What stirred me from this fragile twilight sleep were the slightest of sounds outside my talan; a rustle and a thud.  My pillow was damp and my eyes were gritty and hot. I sat up, and only realized when I tasted the tang of salt in my mouth that I must have been weeping. 

 

I blinked owlishly, peering around me into the dark, and an apparition appeared at my bedside, silver-haired and silent as a specter.

 

“Rúmil?  Is that you?”

 

My voice was hoarse and almost unrecognizable from my fractured rest.  I wondered how long he had been standing there, watching me as I tossed and turned in the tangled bedsheets, and the thought discomfited me.

 

He stood at my bedside, and I could see his eyes glittering strangely in the moonlight. 

 

“You were expecting someone else to creep into your chambers in the dead of night?”

 

He was a cheeky one!  A bubble of laughter welled in my chest and I felt my lip curl into a smile, and hastily concealed my amusement with a few callous words.

 

“Did you give a single thought to your reputation, or mine, when you decided to creep into my bedroom in the middle of the night, little one?  What if Elladan had been here?  What if someone else had seen you?  Your brother, perhaps?”

 

He flinched at my deliberate reminder of the difference in our ages, yet his gaze never wavered.  “No one saw, me, Elrohir. I made sure of it.  I would not bring dishonor to either of our families.”

 

His gaze was weighty upon me as it lingered upon my bare chest, and my cheeks grew hot.  I pulled the sheets up to cover myself.

 

“Why are you here, Rúmil?  There is nothing left to say that has not already been said,” I asked finally when a long few moments had passed, while we silently appraised one another in the moonlight.

 

“Yet I will say it again, and again and again until the end of Time, if need be.  _I love you_ , Elrohir.”

 

My heart turned upside down, just as it had the first time he had proclaimed his feelings for me, but I shook my head.  He was scarce more than a child still, his limbs still ungainly with late adolescence, even his face still bearing traces of the childhood he had not quite left behind.  He knew nothing of the world beyond the great wood, had not lived long enough to experience more than a transient acquaintance of love and heartache, war and triumph.  His love for me could not be; nothing could come of it.

 

“You are so very young, Rúmil.  You swear yourself to me, but you know nothing of love.” My words were purposely cruel.

 

“Aye, young I may be, but not so young that I do not know the desire of my own heart.  Were not your own grandparents scarce older than I when they were betrothed and even begat children?  Your own father is living proof of that!”  His words dripped with derision. 

 

Score one point for Rúmil. I protested, “But that was different - ” 

 

“Nay, not so different at all!” he insisted.  “They knew their hearts, even as mere youths.  Your own ancestry is rife with unconventional love, Elrohir.  ‘Tis from your line alone that an Elf-maid – two of them! - took mortals as their spouses!  I have seen the truth in your eyes, but you are afraid… afraid of what your own heart tells you.”

 

“I am not afraid!” I burst out, clenching the sheets in my fists.  I was… oh, I was terrified.  But what was it that I was afraid of?  I honestly could not answer.

 

His voice was low and urgent in the dark.  “Tell me you do not feel the same, and I will go, and never speak of it again.  Tell me, Rohiren.” 

 

Rohiren.  _My Elrohir_. 

 

I was silent, contemplating my answer.  I _knew_ my resolution was the right one.  My mind was convinced.

 

Yet my willful heart and unruly body told me otherwise.  Why else, then, did my blood heat when his keen gaze caught my eye?  Why did my traitorous heart thump wildly whenever he was near?

 

And suddenly I knew.

 

Despite every rational part of my being screaming at me to deny it, the truth came to me in a vivid burst of revelation.  Somehow, some way, however improbable it might seem, however illogical it may be, I had fallen in love with him.

 

Was this how it happened with my father, too?  That he awoke one day as if from a dream and realized suddenly that after interminable years of bachelorhood, it was my mother with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his immortal life?  And the same with my foremothers, who loved those extraordinary Men?

 

In that moment, I too knew that I would give my heart to him, would swear my very _life_ for him.  I think I’d known it years ago, the moment a silver-haired, green-eyed tot had determinedly planted his tiny feet in front of me and laid his most cherished possession, a tattered, ragged blanket, in my hands.

 

The night light suddenly seemed less bleak, the moon-washed colors now gossamer-pale and dreamy.

 

“You cannot,” Rúmil crowed victoriously.  He, a stripling youth, had called my bluff as smoothly and assuredly as the most skilled diplomat many years his senior.

 

Finally, I laughed softly into the darkness.  **“You seem to know a lot.  More than is good for you, I guess.”**

 

He spoke not a word, but his eyes gleamed triumphantly in the wavering moonlight.  And then, he moved as silent as the wind across the floor and leaned into me.  For one brief second he pressed his lips against mine.  It was a clumsy kiss, dry, inexperienced, and caught my lip painfully against my teeth, but it left me dizzy, all the same.

 

“So young, to be so brazen,” I said finally, falling back into the pillows.

 

“Will you…will you wait for me, Rohiren?  To finish growing up, I mean?”  His voice, so sure and strong before, was now hesitant.

 

This impudent little imp had staked his claim on my heart, and there was no other answer I could give.  I touched my mouth, where I imagined I could still feel the lingering tingle of his kiss, then took his hand in mine and pressed it against my lips.

 

“Small choice you have given me, little one.  I will wait for you.”

 

He nodded, touched my cheek softly, and turned to go.  His fingers slipped slowly from mine, but I was reluctant to let him go so easily, now that I knew.

 

“Rúmil?”

 

He stopped, waiting.  “Aye?”

 

“Grow quickly.”

 

*~*~* finis *~*~*


End file.
